Sleep is overrated

I have had a fitful night sleeping tonight. It was raining really hard during the night but I'm not sure that the weather was the cause. I just couldn't get comfortable. When I got up a wanted to get a bowl of cereal but I'm not going to eat, secretly, in the middle of the night. That's not a good habit to get started. I woke up feeling anxious and wanted to eat the anxiety away. Rather than do that, I'm blogging. I'm so sleepy that I don't know what to say. I can feel the lie that anxiety is though. Anxiety makes you want to act rashly to get it to go away. It's a game it plays with you. You feel it. You want it to go away because it is the most awful feeling. You start to think of things that normally wouldn't even be on you're radar. If anxiety lies to you enough, you begin to believe it. Then you will do almost anything to get it to stop. The 'almost everything' I would do is usually eating, sometimes sleeping. I do things that I don't want to do because I believe the lie being told to me (hurry up, do something, before things get even worse).

All I can think about is breakfast. I feel like if I don't get to eat soon that the world as I know it will end. I know that sounds dramatic, but that's how it feels. Marianne asked me yesterday if I thought this was an addiction. I told her that I think it is. Just like someone can be addicted to drugs or alcohol, I am addicted to food. There is a high I get each time I eat something. I tell myself that I'll just have this one thing and then I end up eating the whole bag. Right now I'm jonesing for a fix, something to eat. The feeling is irrational but at the time it feels very rational. My body and mind are reacting to the deprivation of my drug of choice - food. I am detoxing. I am fighting through sugar withdrawals. Any addiction is an ugly thing. Mine just happens to be food.

And like a drug or alcohol addict it's all or nothing for me right now. I'm either eating everything that I want, whether it's bad for me or not or I stop all junk food and overeating. I think part of the reason it's like this for me is because I'm a black and white thinker (all or nothing). There's not a middle ground that I can operate in. I'd like to tell myself that I could have a treat once a week, but once a week would lead to twice a week, which would lead to giving in completely. So until I can learn to operate in the gray zone, I have to keep tight reins on my eating.

The anxious feeling still looms. Marianne had a quote about addiction that I can't seem to remember. It's something about a pathological need for a mood altering substance. Basically what I got out of the quote was that I have a need for food because eating alters my mood. I am anxious, I eat, I feel calm. What I'm going through is definitely an addiction. I'm just glad that Marianne is there for me. Lisa and Kitty too. I'm going to have to make changes in my life and I need those who are closest to me to know what I am struggling with so they don't put me in harms way.

Just the fact that I'm up in the middle of the night struggling with wanting to eat when I don't need to shows a lot about this addiction. I have to take this seriously. By not taking it seriously I've got myself weighing 272.2 pounds when I should be somewhere around 160. It's not the number that's important but the way I feel physically and mentally at that weight. Here is a good article on food addiction. Also, there are these symptoms to watch out for:

• Obsessed with thoughts about food.
• Eats to relieve worry or stress.
• Eats until they feel sick.
• Feels anxious while eating.
• Worries or feels anxious while eating which results in more eating.
• Overeats because the food is there.
• Eats too fast so they can eat more.
• Eats everything on the plate even when they feel full.
• Feels guilty when they overeat.
• Hides food so they can eat in secret away from other people.
• Goes on a food binge after dieting or after trying to cut back.
• Does not like the feeling of being hungry.
• Sees food as something to be avoided or as harmful.

All of these things can be said about me. My name is Samantha and I am addicted to food.